Kiwi competitive FPS Sky Noon is up for a SXSW award

Lunar Rooster heads to Texas.

Matt Maguire

Kiwi-made western FPS Sky Noon is up for an award at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.

The Smash Bros.-style PC title, which began life as a project for a group of final year Media Design School students known collectively as Lunar Rooster, was one of 100 games selected from a pool of more than 550 for a SXSW game award nomination.

It is in the running for "Gamer's Voice Multiplayer" against 16 other games including Ghost Town Games' Overcooked, Pocketwatch Games' Tooth and Tail, and minor YouTube sensation Human: Fall Flat.

"They are so pretty massive titles to be honest," said Lunar Rooster's Craig Taylor. "I've heard of these titles – what are we gonna do?"

Even so, the team is extremely happy to get the nomination.

"It's incredible, especially since as far as I know, we are the only New Zealand team going over," said Taylor.

"We've been getting messages from people we don't even know from other countries saying, 'I used to work in game dev in New Zealand, these guys are from New Zealand, go New Zealand game dev!'

"It's incredible, people you never heard of or met giving you well wishes. It's a pretty good industry to be in."

SXSW Gaming 2017 takes place in the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas from Thursday, March 16 to Saturday, March 18.

As such, Lunar Rooster is now flat out setting the game's current build up for local play, and planning ways to get SXSW attendee votes "obviously shy of giving people the game and T-shirts".